Journal

TIPS: Customer Reviews, Ratings and Comments

In a consumer environment that's seen the rise of the educated customer and the perceived death of brand loyalty, forms of customer feedback like reviews, ratings and comments mean more—to your brand's image and to your internal operations—than ever before. Customers are holding brands more accountable than ever before, and this raises the expectation of transparency for brands and companies.

Once you have a holistic and nuanced customer experience intact, here are some ways to make sure your raving fans are telling the world about you:

1. Make sure what you are promising the customer is what is delivered (and a little more).

2. Make sure you are living up to your values in all aspects of your value chain. If you say you care about sustainability make sure the materials you use are recyclable.

3. Send out an online survey at the completion of a service or transaction. How did you do? What could have been better? At the end of the survey, provide easy links for customer reviews and ask them to connect on social media to share their positive experience.

4. Use social-media platforms like Facebook, Google, Swarm, Yelp and Houzz to ask people in your network to leave feedback.

5. If you work with vendors, do reviews for them and ask them to return the favor.

6. If you have a brick-and-mortar location, have a sign-up event incentivizing customer feedback.

7. Make sure you monitor reviews on a regular basis. Respond to both positive and negative reviews. And, when people tell you what needs to change, listen and implement.